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Chinese scientists make tougher diamond without losing hardness

The new material boosts diamond toughness six times while keeping its hardness unchanged, and it was published online July 9 in Nature Synthesis.

Reported · Written up by our desk · Industrial Metals

Chinese scientists say they have developed a diamond engineered to be significantly tougher while preserving its baseline hardness, a tradeoff that has long limited materials used for industrial cutting and polishing tools, according to a paper published in the peer reviewed journal Nature Synthesis.

The work, attributed to researchers from the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Beihang University, addresses the key weakness of conventional diamond: despite being the hardest natural material on Earth, it is brittle and can shatter under sharp impact like a hammer blow.

The researchers report building an internal support structure inside the diamond, which increases toughness by six times without changing hardness. They also say the resulting material is tougher than the tungsten alloys used in armour piercing ammunition.

The paper, published online July 9, says the approach relies on multi walled carbon nanotubes, described as ultra strong carbon fiber cords that are extremely thin but many times stronger than steel.

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